Surgical procedures can be performed using a teleoperational medical system in a minimally invasive manner. The benefits of a minimally invasive surgery are well known and include less patient trauma, less blood loss, and faster recovery times when compared to traditional, open incision surgery. In addition, the use of a teleoperational medical system, such as the DA VINCI® Surgical System commercialized by Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., is known. Such teleoperational medical systems may allow a surgeon to operate with intuitive control and increased precision when compared to manual minimally invasive surgeries.
A teleoperational medical system may include one or more instruments that are coupled to one or more robotic arms. If the system is used to perform minimally invasive surgery, the instruments may access the surgical area through one or more small openings in the patient, such as small incisions or natural orifices, such as, for example, the mouth, urethra, or anus. In some cases, rather than having the instrument(s) directly inserted through the opening(s), a cannula or other guide element can be inserted into each opening and the instrument can be inserted through the cannula to access the surgical area. An imaging tool such as an endoscope can be used to view the surgical area, and the image captured by the imaging tool can be displayed on an image display to be viewed by the surgeon during a surgery.
It is desirable to provide teleoperational medical systems that can effectively and accurately employ eye gaze tracking for various applications during minimally invasive medical procedures. The systems and methods disclosed herein overcome one or more of the deficiencies of the prior art.